


Froggy Went A'Courting

by AssortedGeekery



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, F/M, M/M, Sephiroth as youngest sibling, Sephiroth is so done, Spontaneous Dragons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 17:38:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15515061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AssortedGeekery/pseuds/AssortedGeekery
Summary: In which Genesis has a mind to get himself and his brothers married, and Sephiroth is no great shot with a bow and arrow.





	Froggy Went A'Courting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chofi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chofi/gifts).



> Written for chofi, who requested a reworked fairytale featuring Cloud and Sephiroth. 
> 
> I may have gotten a little carried away.

Once, there were three brothers. Bachelors all, and the truest of friends. 

 

One day Genesis, the eldest, declared that they should all marry. 

“We’ll raise our children together as siblings,” he announced. “So they’ll never be alone like we were when we were young.”

“ _ Pass _ ,” Angeal murmured. “We have enough to do without going out hunting for partners.”

“What he said,” Sephiroth yawned. “Seriously, Gen? We could just adopt some.”

Genesis huffed and stormed out of the house in a snit. 

 

Three days later, he returned to the home they shared with a quiver on his back. Sephiroth raised an eyebrow at it; normally Genesis wouldn’t be caught dead with something so plain, nevermind that it looked like a well-made bit of leatherwork.

“ _ This _ is what we’re doing tomorrow,” he announced, putting the quiver and attendant bow down on the table. 

“....we’re….going hunting?” Angeal ventured. 

“For  _ brides _ .”

“Oh,  _ Genesis _ , not this  _ again _ .”

“We’re going out to the hill. Each one of us takes the bow and an arrow, turns around three times, and fires. You’ll find your bride where the arrow falls.”

Angeal looked at the bow and quiver, then gave his older brother an incredulous look. 

“You  _ can’t _ be serious.”

“It’s magicked,” Sephiroth said at once, turning back to the leatherwork in his lap. “Isn’t it?”

“ _ Yes _ .”

Angeal groaned. “ _ Genesis _ !”

“Don’t bother, Angeal,” Sephiroth sighed. “Let’s just do it. When it fails we’ll have plenty of time to get on with our days, rather than arguing with him for hours.”

 

The following morning, the three brothers took chocobo up to the top of the hill near their home, in case they needed to cover some distance to find their arrows. 

Genesis went first, being oldest. After three spins, he fired his arrow to the west and handed the bow to Angeal, untying the red string that had appeared tied to it as soon as the arrow had been loosed. 

“Well, I’m off,” he said with barely restrained glee. “See you at home!” 

He mounted his bird and was off at a gallop, leaving Angeal to sigh heavily and repeat the exercise, this time to the east. 

Alone, Sephiroth contemplated not firing his arrow, but Genesis would pitch a tantrum if he didn’t. He groaned, as archery wasn’t his area of expertise in the slightest, knocked the arrow, spun three times and fired his arrow to the north. 

Thread in hand, he mounted up and galloped away to find his bride. 

 

The thread stretched much further than any arrow should have been able to fly no matter how good the archer was or how powerful the bow. Sephiroth ended up skirting the edge of one of the great marshes to the north, praying he wouldn’t have to actually wade in. 

He didn’t. Perched on a rock at the edge of the march, he found a Touch Me. It sat on top of the arrow, and the other end of the thread was tied in a pretty little bow around it’s leg. 

“Oohhhh no, this is a  _ joke _ ,” Sephiroth moaned, staring at the animal. It was pretty enough, for a frog.  _ Big _ , even for a Touch Me, easily the size of one of Angeal’s prize hens, and glossy blueish green. It croaked softly and raised the leg with the thread on it when Sephiroth approached. 

But he  _ had _ to take it back, or Genesis was going to pitch a fit. 

“Maybe the magic will keep  _ your _ magic from working,” he muttered, reaching out to scoop the creature up. 

Apparently he was correct, because he didn’t shrink into a Touch Me the moment they touched. The Touch Me settled into his arms like a full waterskin and croaked again, placing one cool, slightly moist foot on his chest. 

Biting back more complaints, Sephiroth grabbed the arrow as well and mounted back up. Genesis was  _ never _ going to let him forget this. 

  
  


At home, Sephiroth was utterly furious to find that  _ both _ his brothers had come home with  _ people _ . Actual people. Angeal had a dainty little brunette with huge green eyes, deftly dodging him as she acquainted herself with his herb beds and chicken coops. Genesis was dwarfed by a tall, powerfully built woman with a sheet of black hair and eyes as deep and red as fine wine who was inspecting his orchard and making remarks about a cider press and a brewing shed. 

“ _ Sephiroth _ !” Genesis crowed, taking his new bride by the arm and attempting to steer her over to where Sephiroth was climbing off his bird. He failed to even adjust her course, but she turned towards Sephiroth at the end of the row of trees and headed for him on her own, Genesis walking briskly to keep up with her long legs. “Where is she?”

Sephiroth lifted the Touch Me out of his saddlebag and set it gently in the grass. “This is Cloud,” he said flatly. “I named her on the way back.”

Genesis stared, as Angeal rounded the corner of the barn with his bride on his shoulder. Sephiroth waited patiently as both brothers and both new sisters-in-law came to a halt and stared at Cloud, who sat in the grass blinking up at them all, entirely unperturbed by the journey.

“Sephiroth, that’s a Touch Me,” Genesis said carefully. 

“Yes, well, she was sitting on the arrow and the thread was tied around her leg, so….apparently your spell thinks I should marry a  _ Touch Me _ .”

“....how did you get her back here without being turned into a frog yourself?” Angeal asked. “No skin contact.”

Sephiroth shrugged, finishing unsaddling his chocobo and bending to scoop Cloud back into his arms. The enormous amphibian patted his cheek with one green foot, and Sephiroth sighed. “I have no idea. Doesn’t work on me, or maybe she isn’t a Touch Me.”

“...they don’t  _ make _ regular frogs or toads that size here,” Angeal’s bride pointed out. “ _ Maybe _ all the way to the south in the tropical forests there, but  _ here _ ? I’ve never even  _ heard _ of a Touch Me that size.”

“Could have been normal sized before the magic arrow?” Genesis’ bride suggested, leaning in to inspect Cloud. “ _ I _ didn’t change at all, but-  _ eep _ !”

Cloud’s tongue hit her square in the forehead and she hopped backwards...but didn’t turn into a Touch Me.

Genesis promptly patted Cloud as well, with no effect beyond a baleful look from her.

“Well, that solves the problem of whether or not it’s safe to have her in the house!”

  
  


Spontaneous frog-ification was the least of the problems that cropped up in the next months. Despite appearing to be far more intelligent than the average amphibian, Cloud was still a frog. She ate bugs, eliciting assorted squeals and exclamations of disgust that were both due to the bug-eating and due to the horror that she had found insects of such size at all. On more than one occasion she hopped into the bath with one of her new sisters-in-law. Tifa handled it fairly gracefully, but Aerith summoned the entire farm with a shriek and had to be helped down off the bookshelves where she had fled. Sephiroth hardly slept for fear of rolling over on her in the night. Angeal found her lounging in the duck pond while his ducks congregated on the shore, making worried muttering noises. Genesis chased fished her out of chocobo troughs and repeatedly removed her from the kitchen table.

Come spring, it was gently suggested that Sephiroth and his slimy young wife spend the warm months in the mountains, at the cabin they had inherited from an aunt some time ago. It wasn’t actually  _ said _ that another month of having a giant frog around the house was going to end with someone finally going off the deep end, but it was implied, particularly after Cloud left a single, perfect footprint on a book Genesis had left out and open on the table.

 

So Sephiroth packed a few things, gathered the young chocobo he was planning to break that year, enlisted Angeal’s help to move in and suddenly found himself alone in the mountains with a frog bride and a bunch of unruly teenage chocobo for company. 

He dealt with the problem by going out to work the birds as long and as hard as he or they could bear, and as the days passed, this became most of the day. 

Until one evening, when he stumbled inside around sunset to find the cabin spotless, all the cleaning he’d told himself he’d do ‘tomorrow’ finished, laundry lying folded in a basket beside his bed and a meal laid out upon the table. Cloud sat at one end of the table, delicately pawing at a small dish of minced venison, a favored food when she wasn’t catching insects.

“.........I’m too tired to try and understand this,” he declared, sitting at  Cloud’s end of the table to eat his supper.

 

For the rest of the week, the cabin was clean, the chores were done and dinner was ready when Sephiroth came in from his work. He spent his nights wondering what was going on. Magic? Someone sneaking into the cabin when he was gone? Genesis up to something? He had to know. At best it was something harmless, albeit possibly with someone trespassing. At worst, he had even more magic to contend with.

The following week, he waited until late afternoon, then crept back to the cabin and peered through a window. The first thing he saw was a frog skin, massive and floppy, hanging from a coathook beside the door. Then someone moved past him with their back to the window, sweeping the floor of the main room. Someone he didn’t recognize. A trespasser, then...but what had happened to Cloud?

He stayed where he was, occasionally ducking out of sight, as the pretty blond stranger cleaned and finished preparing dinner. Sephiroth half expected to see Cloud in the roasting pan, if only because he could think of no other explanation for his bride’s absence. But as the sun began to set, the stranger took the frog skin down from the coathook and  _ put it on _ . 

Slimy and green once more, Cloud hopped onto the table and waited for Sephiroth to return. 

 

Sephiroth spent another week spying on his frog bride, trying to decide what he ought to do. Cloud-the-person was lovely, sturdy and strong with hair like spun sunshine, and he whistled beautifully as he worked. Cloud-the-frog was sweet and affectionate for all that she(he?) was an armful of slippery skin and webbed toes. Clearly there was magic at work, but how was he to know if the magic was turning an ordinary frog into a person, or an ordinary person into a frog?

After two days in a row of his favorite chidhood dishes, Sephiroth made up his mind. Early in the afternoon the following day, he strode into the cabin while Cloud was working, took the frog skin down from the wall, and tossed it into the fireplace before he could have second thoughts. 

He’d expected and planned for a lot of outcomes, including losing his bride entirely, and a lot of shrieking. He didn’t get any of them.

Cloud proceeded to beat him over the head with the broom he’d been using.

“YOU IMBECILE!” he bellowed, with the kind of projection his froggy-self had been renowned for. “YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER BUFFOON!”

Sephiroth protected his face with one arm and attempted to grab for the broom. The first attempt cracked across his knuckles and made him yelp. On the second grab, he got it and tried to pull it away, but lifted Cloud off the ground instead. Cloud kicked him in the gut, sending them both to the floor. 

“I had to know!” Sephiroth defended, as the blond snatched the broom back and readied it for another strike. 

“Well that’s just  _ peachy _ ,” Cloud snarled. “If you’d just left it alone until the first frost we would have been  _ fine _ , but you had to  _ burn my skin _ , you IDIOT!”

“....is being beaten to death with a broom the only consequence of my actions?  _ OW _ !”

“ _ I’m _ not the one delivering  _ consequences _ !”

Sephiroth sat up and caught the broom again, this time yanking hard enough to tumble Cloud into his lap. 

“So if you aren’t responsible for whatever potential consequences there might be….how about we have our somewhat belated wedding night and worry later?” He stood, lifting Cloud in his arms, and was rewarded with a bright blush to accompany the cuff upside his head. “No arguments? Wonderful!”

 

They had their wedding night, and a dozen or so nights besides. Some days Cloud joined Sephiroth at the chocobo pens, coddling the birds while Sephiroth fought to get them accustomed to the bridle. Other days they hunted, or worked around the cabin and little garden here. Cloud whistled while he worked. Sephiroth sang, when he knew the tune. 

 

Two weeks later, soldiers from the capitol rode up to the cabin. 

“The king demands your presence,” the smartly dressed man with them announced. “ _ Immediately _ . To ignore his summons would be  _ most _ unwise.”

“What does he want?” Sephiroth asked, already reaching for his boots despite his irritation. 

“I couldn’t say.”

Sephiroth looked at Cloud, who mouthed ‘consequences’ at him, and resisted the urge to groan. 

“I’ll be back by sunset,” he promised. 

“Don’t make promises until you know what the king wants,” Cloud sighed, and kissed his cheek. “I’ll wait for you.”

 

Sephiroth was more concerned, not less, when he was shown directly into the throne room instead of being forced to wait, as even the most well-bred of common men usually were. Genesis would have been thrilled, but the expediency made Sephiroth’s skin crawl.

“Word has reached me of your bride, peasant,” the king began, as soon as Sephiroth approached his dias. “Rumor has it that she is the most beautiful creature in my kingdom.”

“He is,” Sephiroth agreed. “At least in my eyes.”

“Give her to me.”

Sephiroth blinked. 

“...what?”

“As king of these lands, I demand your bride, peasant. Give her to me.”

“Cloud belongs to himself.”

“ _ Give _ her to me,” the king repeated, expression darkening. 

Sephiroth eyed the enormous man perched upon his throne like a toad on a stone, and swallowed. 

“I will not.”

The king made a strangled sound and waved a hand. A man detached himself from the shadows along the wall and approached on soundless feet. 

“Come with me,” he said quietly. 

Sephiroth obeyed. 

 

They came to a field on the edge of the city where the hills crept up into mountains, Sephiroth jogging to keep up with the man’s bird. It lay fallow beneath the summer sun, spotted with weeds. 

The man swung two sacks of seed from his mount’s saddle, then dismounted beside an old plow. “The king expects to see this field plowed and sewn by sunset tomorrow, or you will be executed and your wife will become his property,” he explained, gesturing at the field. It stretched a fair distance on all sides, more than Sephiroth had ever plowed in a day even when he was pushing to compete with his brothers. 

“ _ What _ ? That’s impossible!”

The man raised one elegant eyebrow. “Which is the point, is it not?”

“Cloud is  _ my wife _ !”

“And she- he, you said?- will be the king’s prisoner and eventual concubine by the day after tomorrow unless you do what he wants.” 

“It can’t be  _ done _ . I’ve raced to plow fields….this is too large for one man in a day, and I don’t even have something to pull that old plow  _ with _ .”

“Be thankful he wants you dead instead of taken prisoner,” the man sighed. “I have to watch my husband dance for him in the great hall at night. I’ll leave my bird here for you. If I were you, I’d go home and spend the night with your wife. Enjoy what time you have left together.”

Sephiroth grit his teeth. “Thank you.”

The man shrugged. “Rupert’s a greedy slug, but he has the power to allow it, I’m afraid. Good evening.”

 

When the man had gone, Sephiroth tucked the seed bags under the plow, mounted the bird, and rode home. 

Cloud pounced on him as soon as he came through the door, leaping to throw his arms around Sephiroth’s neck. Sephiroth scooped him close with a tired sigh. 

“What did the king want?”

“You.”

“And?”

“I said no.”

“Uh- _ huh _ . How did that go?”

“I have to plow an enormous feel and plant the whole thing by sunset tomorrow, or he’ll kill me and take you.” He carried Cloud to the bed and sat down, cradling the blond in his lap. “I took the bird one of his men gave me and came home to see you. Tomorrow I’ll try, but….Cloud, it’s not possible. The field is bigger than all the fields Angeal and Genesis and I plowed this spring.” He nuzzled into the hollow of Cloud’s throat, taking in his scent while Cloud stroked his hair. 

“Tomorrow morning, we’ll go get it done.”

“....what?”

“I am your  _ wife _ . If I’m going to be the stakes in this ludicrous bet, then I’m going to help. We’ll borrow my father’s ox.”

 

Come morning, they mounted up and Cloud lead Sephiroth to the pond on the edge of their property. Dismounting, he handed Sephiroth a small stone. “Throw it into the water and call out like I told you to last night.”

Sephiroth obeyed, tossing the pebble into the still water. “Father, I have need of your strong ox!”

The water roiled violently, then released a massive black ox already wearing a harness. Sephiroth caught the lead rein and stared at the enormous beast, deciding not to ask about the unnervingly violet eyes that it fixed on him. 

“To the field!” Cloud announced.

When the ox was hitched to the plow, the rust fell away to reveal a gleaming blade sharp as the day it had been made. Sephiroth took hold of the plow, flicked the reins, and began, Cloud trotting along behind him with the seeds. 

 

By late afternoon, the field had been sown and the seeds sprouted in their wake, well on their way to growing into a healthy field of wheat in a matter of hours. 

Cloud unpacked dinner beside the fence they had hitched the chocobo to as Sephiroth pulled the plow out of the way and unhitched the ox. When the great beast’s traces had fallen away, the oxen vanished, leaving an equally enormous young man grinning at him. As Sephiroth stared, he threw himself down at Cloud’s side and helped himself to a few slices of cheese. 

“Got yourself a live one, huh Cloud?”

Cloud laughed and smacked the man’s shoulder as Sephiroth settled beside him.

“Sephiroth, this is Zack, cousin of one of your sisters-in-law and a loyal subject of my parents. Zack, this is my husband so  _ be nice _ .”

 

The field had grown almost to maturity by the time the king and his entourage arrived. Sephiroth thought the elegant man who had given him the seeds smiled before the kind started yelling. 

“Sorcery!” he roared. 

“No, my king,” Sephiroth sighed. 

“You will harvest this field by sunset tomorrow, and if you leave so much as a  _ single grain _ , I’ll have you killed and your wife will be mine!”

Cloud snorted quietly. 

“Yes, my king,” Sephiroth muttered. 

Furious, the king stormed away.

Zack stood once the dust cloud had cleared from the road. “Well, I’m off to put the fear of the gods into your brothers, Sephipoo. Good luck tomorrow.”

“.....thank you?”

 

The following morning, Cloud took Sephiroth down to the pond again. Feeling a little more confident this tme, Sephiroth tossed a pebble into the water. “Mother, I have need of your jackdaws!”

From the frothing, churning water burst a massive flock of the birds, which followed Cloud and Sephiroth as they rode to the field. There, they descended en masse upon the golden field of mature wheat, whirling in a cloud across the expanse. At Cloud’s directive, he and Sephiroth waded into it with the grain sacks the king’s elegant servant had left for them, tying each off as it was filled and stacking them neatly at the gate where the chocobo were hitched. 

 

By late afternoon, Sephiroth was tossing the last sack of wheat into the stack beside the gate. As he did, the flock swept towards him with a great gust of wind, blowing the fallen straw into a line of hay stacks against the fence, Swirling together into a dense cloud then, they vanished, leaving a tall, wraith-like man with ebony hair and wine-red eyes that Sephiroth recognized. 

“....cousin of my sister in law?” he asked, voice cracking. 

“Uncle,” the man corrected, accepting a hug and a cup of wine from Cloud. 

“This is Vincent,” Cloud explained. 

“Thank you for helping,” Sephiroth managed. 

“Think nothing of it. I’m to go deal with the uproar Zack’s caused, after this.”

“Say hello for us!” Cloud chirped. 

“Of course.”

 

The bellowing and cursing that ensued when the king and his entourage arrived was incredible. Sephiroth and Cloud stood by, waiting quietly as he raged, watching the elegant man behind him smirking. 

“Have you another task for me, or may my wife and I return home?” Sephiroth asked, once the tatrum appeared to be over. 

“I have one more task for you,” the king snapped. “Do you see this ring?” he held his hand up, showing them a heavily jeweled ring. “My mother wore it’s twin, and she took it with her when she died. Retreive it for me and you may keep your wife.”

Sephiroth began to object, but Cloud trod hard on his foot. 

“Of course, your majesty,” Cloud promised. “We’ll set out in the morning. But may I make a request before we leave?”

The king snorted, but most of his attention was on Cloud’s sweet smile and he nodded. 

“If I am to become your wife, I simply cannot stand for my husband to keep a harem.”

Sephiroth heard a tiny sound of surprise from the elegant man behind the king. 

“If my husband fails in his quest and I come to be your wife, I wish for you to release all your wives at once.”

“As you like,” the king said dismissively. “When your husband fails, I will release the others and you alone will be mind.”

Cloud nodded. “Very well. Come, husband. Tomorrow will be here soon enough.”

 

Come morning, as Sephiroth moaned about the ridiculousness of his latest quest and how the drama of it was far more suited to Genesis, Cloud lead him back to the pond. 

“What do I say this time?” Sephiroth sighed, bending for a pebble. 

“You don’t. It’s my turn.”

“But-”

“Don’t you ‘but’ me, I am your  _ wife _ . Shut up and stand back.”

Sephiroth obeyed, watching as Cloud lobbed a stone into the middle of the pond. “Honored Mother and Father, lend me your swift ram!”

“A  _ ram _ ?” Sephiroth asked, as the water began to churn. 

“ _ Hush _ , you,” Cloud warned. 

The enormous golden ram that trotted out of the water gave Sephirth a baleful look, but allowed Cloud to hop astride his back. 

“Come on, Seph,” Cloud chuckled. “We have a long way to go and his patience only lasts so long.”

Full of misgivings for sheep in general and this sheep in particular, Sephiroth did as he was told. 

 

It was a wobbly-legged, weak-kneed Sephiroth who staggered off the ram at the mouth of a cavern on the other side of the mountains. The ram waited until he and Cloud were out of the way, then melted into a stocky man with the same golden hair and blue eyes as Cloud’s.

“.... _ Cloud _ ?” Sephiroth managed. 

“My big brother,” Cloud laughed. “Thanks for the ride, Cid.”

“You can get home on your  _ own _ ,” Cid grumbled, producing a pipe from thin air and lighting it. “Your husband has an ass like  _ knives _ , Cloud.”

He popped out of existence before Sephiroth could object, leaving Cloud to take him by the hand and lead him into the cave. 

“Cloud, I can do this alone,” Sephiroth tried. 

“We’re married. We do this together,” Cloud said firmly. “So there. Come on, I want this mess dealt with before you become an uncle.”

“An  _ uncle _ ?” 

 

Deep in the cave, they came to an audience chamber with a pale, elegant woman in a throne at the far end. Sephiroth recognized the ring on one graceful hand as it lay over the head of her cane. 

“Visitors?” the woman asked as they approached. “What brings you here to my realm of death, children?”

“Your son sent us,” Sephiroth said. 

“ _ Did _ he, now. Sit, my children, and tell me your story.”

 

When their story was finished, the woman sighed heavily. “I knew he’d do something stupid when I was gone, but  _ this _ ! Here.” She waved a hand, summoning a carved wooden box from a wisp of smoke. “Here. Take this back to the capitol and give it to him. Do  _ not _ look inside, and get out of the way once he has it. It should take care of things.”

Sephiroth took it and bowed respectfully. “Thank you.”

“Thank  _ you _ for being willing to fight for a bride you found in a swamp wearing the skin of a frog,” she chuckled. “Bit of an unusual decision for a man with your looks to make.”

“.....it seemed a good solution to the problem of not wanting to marry in the first place,” Sephiroth mumbled awkwardly. “And Coud….as a frog, I mean….was a good enough companion.”

“And now, as a man?”

“....considerably better company than a giant frog.”

She nodded. “Smart answer. Off you go. You’ll find yourself considerably closer to where you need to be if you take the left fork on your way out.”

Sephiroth opened his mouth to ask where ‘closer’ was and whether where they needed to be was actually the palace or not, but Cloud stamped on his foot again and took his hand to pull him away down the left fork in the passageway. 

 

It was a much shorter walk on the way out; the passage turned into a hallway, which in turn ended in the palace wine cellars. It had vanished when Sephiroth looked back to see how anyone had managed to miss a massive hole in the cellar wall.

They proceeded together up into the palace proper and were received by the elegant man, who made no commentary on their unorthodox entrance. He sent a page ahead of them to annouce their arrival and lead them to the throne room. 

There they found Rupert and a small crowd of consorts. Rupert grinned nastily at them. 

“Short trip,” he drawled. “Have you come to admit your failure.”

Sephiroth shook his head. He took the box from Cloud and marched up to the throne, stepping onto the dias to the gasps of a number of scandalized consorts- a common man such as himself had no business at the same level as the king. 

“Your mother sent this, with her regards, your majesty,” he murmured, bowing as minutely as he could get away with and placing the box in the king’s hands. “As agreed, I’ll be keeping my wife and we’ll be going home.”

He backed off the dias as quickly as he could without actually falling off and continued to back up, Cloud’s hand in his, as Rupert eyed the box. 

“I sent you for a  _ ring _ , peasant,” he growled, but lifted the lid of the ornate little container any way. “What is this? A pretty little box but I see no-”

The lid flew out of his hand. Gouts of smoke billowed out of the box, along with an irate shriek. Rupert and the box vanished with an anguished howl from the king and a furious cry of ‘how dare you embarrass me like that!’

 

Silence reigned over the hall for several long moments. Then, in the crowd of consorts, a lean, lanky redheaded yawned, stretched, and became a dragon roughly half the size of the hall. The elegant man who had guided Sephiroth since his arrival in the palace did the same thing on the other side of the hall, effectively trapping the remaining consorts for a brief moment of panicked screaming before they both vanished. 

“And this is our cue to leave,” Sephiroth said quickly. “ _ Now _ .” He scooped Cloud up and made a hasty exit. It would be a very long walk back to the cabin, but he didn’t feel like waiting any longer. 

 

He needn’t have bothered. Outside the palace gates, Angeal, Genesis and their wives waited with two extra chocobo.

“Magic arrow leads to magic brides, hmm?” Sephiroth drawled when he saw Genesis’ wife smile at him with teeth that were more like fangs than they ought to have been. 

“Apparently,” Angeal sighed, pointedly ignoring the fact that his wife was mounted on a massive Nibel Wolf instead of a chocobo like the others. 

“You’ve met some of the inlaws?”

“They said you sent them.”

“I did not!”

“Can we go  _ home _ now?” Cloud demanded. “We’ve literally been to hell and back, and I want to sleep in my own bed tonight.”

“We’re all coming up to the cabin,” Genesis sighed. “In the morning we’ll pack your things and you’re coming back to the house.”

“We didn’t  _ know _ it was Cloud,” Tifa admitted. “He’s been missing for ages!”

“Tifa’s uncle explained,” Aerith agreed. “Even if he was still a frog, it’s  _ different _ when you know he’s of the Folk.”

“I grew up with Tifa,” Cloud added. “And Zack too.”

“ _ Home _ ,” Sephiroth sighed. “I’m too tired to remember any family business you try to explain right now.”

“Home,” Genesis agreed. “Come on.”

 

And they all lived happily ever after, except for when the freed dragons came to dinner unannounced. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was written based on the version of the Frog Bride (or Frog Princess) found in the Asia Edition of Cautionary Tales and Fables.
> 
> And then I sort of ran with it.


End file.
